With the death of Heath Ledger, it started me thinking about other's who have died well before their time. And i thought about Jeff Buckley. For those of you who dont know who he was, Jeff was the son of Tim Buckley who too befell a tradgic early death. Jeff is the most influential musican that alot of people have never heard of. But his one album is responsible for so much of todays most celebtrated progressive, sound defing music.
Most famous for his adaption of the ledgendary Leonard Cohen's achingly beautiful and desperate Hallelujah. Jeff created style of powerful emotion and had a voice of the most delicate whisper to the most powerful, heartbroken scream.
He died in 1997 on the Mississippi river..while recording his new album "my sweetheart, the drunk", he went for a swim, bobbed around for alittle while, and then disapeared under the water. his body was found days later.
Why, am i talking about this now? well the combination of Heaths death, and the fact the a few years back Brad Pitt was featured in a documentary about Jeff Buckley, in which he reveals that he is a massive fan. a year or so after that Brad Pitt's production company began a speculative venture with Jeff's mother and close friend who is a director, on the abilty to make a biopic. Information has been few and far between, but what is known is that the working title is "Mystery White Boy" in reference to one of Jeff's live albums. No actor has been named to play him, and here within is where the issue lies. Do you go with a big name actor, who looks abit like him such as James Franco from the spider man movies, or Ryan Gosling, who apparently has a great voice and can play the guitar. Or do you go with an unknown to make the movie more about the person than the actor. you may be sacrficing box office returns, but it depends on what this movie is attempting to achieve.
Regardless, start listening to him. in todays modern music world where you can download a song just like that, people are ignoring the truly great songwriting that comes with writing an almost perfect album. Grace is a record you need to listen to from one end to the other at least once in your life.
i spent hours trawling through youtube trying to find video's that do him justice, but he did very few music videos, and live performances are even rarer. And of what i did find i was only able to narrow it down to two. one recorded, one live, in the hopes you will go off and find your own.